What Social Media Marketing Services and Marketing Directors Need to Know
Having social media accounts for your brand is a FREE way to get the word out about your business, and it’s incredibly easy if you utilize social media marketing services. If you choose to go with paid advertising on social media platforms, you can expect your results to be even greater. It’s imperative to keep up with these sites to make sure that you catch changes in their privacy policy, rates, and methods of advertising. This blog post covers some of the big changes going on right now, including the best platform to use for Chinese targeting, how Facebook is cracking down on clickbait articles, and how Pinterest can be utilized during Memorial Day and Fourth of July to bump up your revenue.
Before we go into social media news though, let’s go over why social media advertising is so important. For one, this form of marketing increases brand awareness. You can build credibility for your brand by establishing a brand identity that’s consistent throughout all your social media accounts. Sure, you can take some liberties with some sites more than others (ie: emojis are fine in your Instagram caption, but not so much on LinkedIn), but you need to keep in mind your brand pillars. Hootsuite is a great tool to utilize to make sure that you’re sending a similar message to all your social media accounts. Not only should you be spreading similar content, but you should also keep with a similar color scheme and bio description. You can also make your profile picture your company logo!
Audiences for each social media platform from Sprout Social:
Social Media and Customer Service
Another great benefit to social media advertising is that it can help with your customer service. It gives users a quick, immediate way to reach you when they need help with something or just want to share their love for your brand! You can get the word out about your deals without having to gather their contact information for an email newsletter. If you send out a monthly calendar of all your deals, it’s less likely that someone will remember all of them than if you update your social media accounts each day with your deals. When you publicly respond to questions or concerns, it shows that you’re dedicated to customer satisfaction and user experience. Some responses even generate interest in your brand, like Wendys’ snappy comebacks on their Twitter account. They had several articles written about them, creating FREE brand exposure. If you outsource your social media marketing services, your partner digital marketing agency can take care of all the responses for you!
Brand Exposure and Web Traffic
The great thing about a lot of these social media platforms is that they let you list your website URL on your profile. This brings in extra website traffic, since people are going to check you out before/after they decide to follow you. Your social media posts also give you a chance to provide links to your business website. Social media marketing services also know how to utilize social media accounts to improve your search ranking. More traffic means your website looks more reputable to search engines. For the best Twitter posts, include an image, caption, and URL. If you already have a features image and meta description for your blog post, Twitter automatically uploads this when you include the full URL. For example:
Twitter’s New Privacy Policy
Fun fact: when you’re on a site that has a tweet button or embedded tweet, Twitter can see this and use the information to target you with ads. With the updated privacy policy, Twitter can now “use the information it collects about people’s off-Twitter web browsing for up to 30 days, as opposed to the previous 10-day maximum” (according to this article by Marketing Land). This will take effect on June 18th, and is big news for those who currently utilize paid advertising through Twitter. The update will ensure that ads are aimed at enough of the right people, hopefully making the platform more appealing to direct-response advertisers. With their ad revenue declining, this change in policy couldn’t be coming at a better time for social media marketing services.
If you think this sounds like an even greater invasion of privacy though, have no fear! Twitter has also added a new section to the settings menu on their site and in their mobile apps which gives a lengthier description of how their targeted advertising works. It also allows users to deselect individual interest categories and request a list of the companies that use Twitter’s Tailored Audiences option. These companies target users with ads that are based on the potential customer’s email, Twitter handle, or browser history (whether they’ve visited the advertiser’s site or used their app).
Twitter Disables Do Not Track
Twitter has also removed support for Do Not Track, an HTTP header field that allows users to request that their behavior not be tracked on websites for the purpose of targeted ads. Even though they were big proponents of this option in 2012, it seems they’re following in the footsteps of many other major companies who have withdrawn their support for Do Not Track in recent years (including Hulu, Facebook and Google). However, Twitter does still have an option for people to disable ads targeted based information collected off Twitter. You can even disable Twitter from being able to see when you visit a site that features a tweet button or embedded tweet. From social media marketing services’ standpoint, the downfall of Do Not Track is a bonus for their marketing efforts.
Weibo Surpassed Twitter in China
If you’re an international business targeting China or a digital marketing agency looking to expand your clients’ reach into the Asian market, Weibo should be on your radar. This microblogging website is likened to Facebook and Twitter (both blocked in China). Weibo is used by over 30% of internet users, and over 100 million messages are posted on the site each day. They’ve also reported a 30% increase in monthly active users in its first quarter results. Their net revenue growth was bolstered by advertising and marketing revenues, which grew 71% to $169.3 million. Since 91% of Weibo users access the site through their phone, mobile advertising is probably your best bet with this platform. Their new live streaming and Weibo Stories features have capitalized on the popularity of short videos, joining the ranks of Facebook and Snapchat. Keep an eye out for this social media platform that has surpassed Twitter and is expected to gain even more momentum in the future.
Facebook Cracks Down on Clickbait
According to Facebook, clickbait is when a headline withholds information necessary to understand what the story is about. An example of this would be something like “You’ll Never Believe Who…”. In this case, you have to click the link to know the answer. An example of an exaggerated headline would be something that makes a statement which is later proven false or twisted upon further reading. Last year, Facebook trained its algorithm to recognize clickbait headlines and penalize the sites and pages associated with these posts. With this update though, they can now target individual posts that link to an articles that under-delivers and overpromises. This is a better way for them to isolate and eliminate the clickbait. Where Facebook Pages and website domains used to be the only culprits blamed for this dishonest advertising, the new algorithm makes it easier to distinguish between the one-time violators and the truly evil spammers. Instead of attacking the entire publication, they can just target the individual posts. They’ll even be able to distinguish between headlines that withhold information and headlines that exaggerate the story. Social media marketing services should check out these examples of good clickbait to utilize the technique properly without being penalized.
Advertising on Pinterest
One thing that can be said about Pinterest: they understand what people want. Half of what I see in my feed is a recipe, Tumblr post, outfit, etc. that interests me. According to one agency executive, “the ability to predict where people are in the consumer journey, and place ads that connect with them in that moment…is what will make them most valuable to advertisers”. Pinterst recently launched a visual search product that they hope will turn into a visual search ad (called Pinterest Lens). All you’ll have to do it point a camera at an object to see similar items in search results. This could revolutionize the ecommerce game.
Memorial Day and Labor Day Weekend
For now, we’ll have to be content with the old-fashioned form of digital advertising. On Pinterest, most searching for the 4th of July is done in the month leading up to it. According to their stats, 3 million people searched for Fourth of July content in 2016. This is the perfect time for home décor, DIY projects, and recipe pins to show off. According to this article from Ad Age, “campaigns in the home category cost less than the other ones, with a $0.37 cost for per click and a click-through-rate on the ads of 0.46%”. Memorial Day advertising packages starts between $75,000 and $100,000, an investment that better come with some highly-researched keywords and smart targeting to make it worth it. Social media marketing services know how to leverage Pinterest advertising to get you the biggest bang for your buck.
Contact Us
For more information on social media trends, check out our blog post. Social media is one of the services we offer, so contact us if you’d like to get started on your social media campaign.